


You kept us awake with wolf teeth

by socknonny



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Character Death Fix, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Fluff, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Monster!Billy, Post-Season/Series 03, Romantic Fluff, Season/Series 03 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-09 17:51:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19480984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/socknonny/pseuds/socknonny
Summary: SPOILERS!!!! DON'T READ AHEAD IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN ALL OF SEASON THREE."We deserve a soft epilogue, my love" -- typervoxilations, Seventy Years of SleepAs far as I'm concerned, this is the epilogue to Season Three.





	You kept us awake with wolf teeth

**Author's Note:**

> I think I've attributed that quote correctly, let me know if I haven't.
> 
> Again, SPOILERS ABOUND!! WATCH OUT!!

It’s so cold down here.

Billy doesn’t know how long he’s been wandering, how long he’s been lost. Is this place real? Maybe he’s dead. Maybe he died when the monster first got him.

Every now and then the scenery shifts, looks more like the Hawkins he knows. He sees things. Terrible things. 

He does terrible things.

One time he did something good. He held the monster off and the girl got away. 

The world turns blue and cold again, and Billy wanders on.

*

The rain at the cemetery drops in sheets. Steve feels like he’s standing at the bottom of a pool. Truth be told, he’s felt like he’s underwater for months now, ever since it happened. Like he’s always drowning with no way out. He hands his umbrella to Max, sick of holding it up when it makes no difference to how wet he’s getting or how cold he always feels, but she lets it drop in the mud.

The rest of the party try to protect them from the rain, but it doesn’t matter. Doesn’t make a difference. Steve stares ahead at the small bronze memorial plaque. William James Hargrove. Passed away 4th July 1985. 18 years. Forever in our hearts.

Steve hadn’t known Billy’s middle name was James.

Rain drips from his hair into his eyes. His hair must be completely flattened by now.

“Should we say something?” he asks, shifting his feet awkwardly.

Max is crying too hard to speak, but she shakes her head. After several sobbing hiccups, she catches her breath again. “Why didn’t they have a funeral?”

“There was no body to bury,” Steve offers. It’s a weak excuse.

When the police had combed the mall to uncover all the bodies, Billy’s wasn’t there. They assumed it had dissolved and become one with the amorphous mass of that creature, but Steve doesn’t like to think about that too much. He doesn’t like to imagine that everything Billy did was lost, that the wounds he bore when he fought the monster were ultimately ground down and thrown together in an indecipherable pile of bones like the rest.

“It doesn’t mean they can’t have a funeral!” Max snaps.

“I know.” 

Steve’s fingers clench and unclench inside his pockets. It feels strange to wear slacks, like his parents have dressed him for something boring and important. Steve picked these out himself. Took far too long to decide because somehow it was important. Like Billy beyond the grave might care that Steve Harrington bothered to dress nicely to his non-funeral.

“He was brave,” Will says suddenly. “He fought the Mind Flayer when it was in his head, and I don’t… I don’t know anyone who could do that.”

“I’ll miss him,” El says, holding her hot pink umbrella closer. “I wish I knew him better.”

“You knew him better than I did,” Max spits out, angry tears hiding her grief as she sobs harder.

El puts an arm around her and squeezes her close, the entire right side of her body soon soaking from the hug.

“Goodbye, Billy,” Steve says.

He feels everyone’s eyes on him, even though he’s sure they’re still looking straight ahead. Something about the words make him feel raw, exposed, even though he hardly said anything. Perhaps _because_ he hardly said anything. He can’t find the words to explain how he feels, this empty weight in his chest that makes him want to talk to this gravestone for hours and hours until his voice is lost and the now-familiar weight makes him sink underground too. Two words don’t make up for that, but still his body tries. His voice wavers with emotion he can’t name, and he can’t see through hot tears.

He should have done something. He should have leapt over the balcony and helped when Billy was holding back the monster, instead of throwing fucking fireworks. He should have gone to Billy when he crashed into his car, done what El did and somehow brought him back out of that place, back into his body. He should have stopped it.

“Goodbye, Billy,” the others echo, and one by one they leave the empty grave.

*

Billy hasn’t been able to reach normal Hawkins for weeks, months. He doesn’t know what that means. Does the thing that took his body no longer need him? If it has his body, what is Billy walking around in down here?

Somehow, he ends up at the cemetery. He wonders if this whole place is a cemetery, and he’s bound to wander it for eternity. He’s too bad to go to Heaven, too fucked up to go to Hell.

He itches for a cigarette.

The cemetery has a new plaque: William James Hargrove. Billy stares at it for a long time. Supposedly, that answers his question and he can give up asking, except the plaque is on the memorial wall. Where they commemorate the deaths that can’t be buried.

Was Billy’s body never buried because it’s down here with him? He runs his hands across his chest, feeling out the hollowness of his stomach and the weakened muscle in his arms. It feels real enough. His hunger feels real enough. He’s managed to survive on canned food in the Hawkins general store, but most of the contents are rancid and he doesn’t know how much longer he can live off that.

 _Is_ he living off them? Why would a dead person need to eat?

He needs to get out of here, and if that thing is no longer calling him back to normal Hawkins, Billy will have to find a way back himself.

*

Steve dreams of Billy. He’s dreamed of him most nights since the day he died, but usually they’re just memories. Things Billy said or did cast in a different light now that he knows more about him. He still thinks Billy was an asshole, but he gets why now. And Steve can admit privately that he’s kind of invested in the redemption of assholes. Kind of likes to cheer for them from the sidelines.

If he’d done more than stay on the sidelines, maybe he could have saved him.

Tonight he dreams of Billy in the Upside Down. It hasn’t been kind to him; long streaks of dirt and blood cover his body, and he looks like he’s been starving for months. He snaps his head around to Steve, alerted by the sound of a footstep, and his eyes are just as blue as ever.

“Harrington,” he breathes, and it sounds like Steve imagines Billy’s last words sounded. The way he’d said “I’m sorry” to Max just before his eyes closed forever.

“Billy,” Steve’s voice breaks.

For a second, all the things he wants to say rush forward at once, clogging in his throat, and he feels like he’s finally drowning for real. But then he swallows and takes a breath and focuses on each bit one by one because, more than the suit-pants, this is important.

“I’m sorry it got you,” Steve says, stepping closer to Billy, who looks like he’s going to run, like he’s going to shatter at the sight of Steve appearing in front of him. “I’m so sorry it got you, and I’m sorry we didn’t save you.” Hot tears well up in his eyes again as he thinks about everything Joyce did to save Will, and how no one did that for Billy. “I’m sorry we didn’t try. You deserved more than that, and we should have realised it was up to us.” The tears break free. “We should have realised you needed us.”

Billy’s brow furrows, and he steps forward. “Harrington, it’s all right.”

“No, it’s not fucking all right.” Steve cuts him off. “And now you’re gone, and pieces of shit like those assholes that opened the gate get to live, and no one does anything to help anyone else in this world, and it shouldn’t be like that, it shouldn’t be that the only people we fight for are the people we know we love when someone else needs just as much help, and I mean if it had been me out there, Dustin would have fought for me, sure, but would anyone else? Would anyone even notice?” 

He knows he’s rambling, sounding absolutely crazy. It doesn’t matter. It’s just a dream. He keeps talking, filling the space between Steve’s exhausted grief and Billy’s confusion with all the words he never said.

“Probably fucking not, or at least it might take them a while, and that’s not because I don’t deserve it, but come on, man, sometimes you have people in your corner and sometimes you don’t, but it’s not right that just because you don’t have anyone with you, you’re so _alone_. Why are you so alone? Why were you always so alone?” Water slides down his cheek and he brushes it angrily aside.

Billy’s eyes are glassy, his face streaked from silent tears. He’s so gaunt now. Who knew he afterlife was so malnourished?

Steve blinks. Dead people don’t starve.

“Billy,” he says, his eyes dropping to the rise and fall of Billy’s chest. “Billy, I don’t think you’re dead.”

Billy’s eyes widen, and he opens his mouth to speak, but the dream fades and Steve wakes up.

*

Was Steve real, or was it just a delusion? So much of the food Billy has eaten these last weeks has been off, it wouldn’t surprise him if he was starting to hallucinate.

But why would he hallucinate Steve saying all that? He’s never heard Steve talk like that before, babbling almost incoherently and looking like he wanted to reach out and grab hold of Billy, like he needed to touch him to make sure he was real.

He hasn’t been able to find a physical way out of this place, but maybe he’s been looking at it wrong. Maybe this place doesn’t exist in the physical world, not like Billy knows it. He’s read enough about other dimensions and planes of existence to know that if he were to describe one, it would look like this.

Which means he needs a doorway. A gate.

If Steve could find him here, Billy can find his way back, he knows it.

*

Steve goes to El first. She and Will have a few hours left before they leave town, but when he gets there, he can’t find the words. Her powers are gone. Maybe not forever, but they’re still gone and Steve doesn’t want to worry her with this. She’ll just carry it with her until she figures out a way to solve it or dies trying.

“Just came to say goodbye,” he says, and ruffles her hair. 

She stares at him through the mess of curls he leaves behind, serious and intent. The late fall breeze whips through the open window, fills the empty room with delight and tousles it further. “No you didn’t.”

“Jesus, can you not do that? Just for once?” Steve drops his head back and closes his eyes. He fucked up. Again. He doesn’t want El to carry this burden. His brain lands on a compromise and he hears himself asking, “How do you get to the Upside Down?”

Her eyes widen. “The gate is closed.”

Steve shakes his head furiously. “No, not like that. I meant when you find people. So, I don’t know, maybe it’s not the Upside Down. That dark place you go.”

“Static,” she says slowly, her brow furrowing. “A picture. I focus, and then I find them.”

“And can you get them back that way?” 

She shakes her head. “Only with a gate.”

Steve sighs. “Yeah. Yeah that makes sense.” He forces a laugh. “Well, I’m not opening a damn gate, so I guess that’s that.”

“Who are you looking for?”

Crap. Ever since he rambled to Billy in his dreams last night, he hasn’t seemed able to keep anything in. The truth just keeps pouring out. He needs a gag.

“No one.”

“Steve.”

“Billy.” His voice is a whisper.

El’s gaze softens. She reaches out and squeezes his shoulder. “He’s happy now.”

The curtains flutter into stillness, the breeze retreating. It’s strange standing in an empty house, like its soul has left and they’re waiting for a new one to come home.

“You don’t know that.” Steve’s voice quavers.

“I hope.”

*

Billy climbs the hill, sweat beading on his brow. The grass is dead. Its papery crackle does nothing to protect his bare feet from the rocks and sticks beneath it, and his skin is soon cut and bleeding.

Where did his shoes go? He was wearing shoes when he crashed his car, when this all started, but now he’s in a singlet and jeans. No shoes. If he’s lucky, it proves his theory.

The thing inside his head didn’t clone him. If it had, Billy would never have been aware of the shit his body had done, the people he hurt.

But he hasn’t left this place since that first night. Even when he was in normal Hawkins, he was here. The cold air was always on his skin, the rancid air filling his lungs. Two places at once, and at the end, he returned here. 

If this dimension is a shadow of Hawkins, then Billy had a shadow as well. The question is, which one was the shadow and which one was real? And if he is the real Billy, how can he leave the shadow world behind?

Billy crests the hill and finds the radio tower just where he remembered from the girl’s memories, when the creature found her, when the end began. It’s huge. The mother of all ham radios. It’s been a while since Billy operated one, but he can remember it easily. 

If this realm is a shadow realm, it exists in the same space but on a difference frequency. If Billy is the real Billy, he’s been operating on the wrong frequency ever since this thing took him. He just needs to switch back. No doorway, no gate. Just a reset.

He turns on the equipment and begins to search. For a long time, he just finds white noise.

Until he doesn’t.

*

Steve’s eyes itch beneath the blindfold. He’s probably been crying too much. He snorts in derision at himself and forces his body to stay still.

The static of the T.V. blurs in the background. It’s almost soothing, a strange anchor to this world while he searches in his mind to find another. He’s probably being an idiot, but since when is that anything new? Besides, for all her powers, El is still human. Somewhere inside their spongy bodies rests the potential for a power Steve can’t comprehend. If she can fight a three storey monster and live, Steve can meditate for five fucking minutes and hear Billy’s voice.

If Billy is alive and stuck in the Upside Down, Steve needs to find him. Steve will find him. He can deal with what happens next when he gets to it.

The white noise fades. It’s strangely easy for Steve to tune it out. Normally his mind buzzes uncontrollably, filled with thoughts and questions he can’t control. Ever since Billy died, it’s like everything just stopped. His mind doesn’t fill with thoughts anymore, only an overwhelming sense of something looming, like everything he wants to think is kept at bay.

He takes advantage of the emptiness and sinks deeper into the trance. After God knows how long, he hears it.

“Earth to Harrington?” It’s faint, almost inaudible, but it’s Billy.

Steve’s heart leaps in his chest, and his hands begin to shake. “Billy?”

“No shit.” The voice is stronger. “You’ve been yelling my name for like half an hour. Plus a whole bunch of other crap. Do you ever shut up?”

“Fuck, Billy.” Steve is dangerously close to breaking down. “God, it’s so good to hear your voice.”

Billy audibly withdraws, just a little. “Jesus, man. Are you all right?”

“Forget that,” Steve snaps. “Are you in the Upside Down? How do I get you back? El can usually see people there, but she’s out of action and I guess I’m not strong enough.”

“Harrington,” Billy interrupts. “Harrington, chill. I’ve got a plan. But I need your help.”

*

Steve staggers up the hill. It’s past midnight, and there is only a hint of warmth left on the breeze. He has no idea what anything Billy said means, but he sounds like he knows what he’s talking about and at this point Steve will try anything.

_A radio sends and receives frequencies, Harrington._

Sure, okay, whatever. He wraps his jacket tighter around his body and starts to run. He should have brought Dustin, but something in him couldn’t bear the thought of a witness. Billy knows what he’s doing; he doesn’t need Dustin here. 

_A frequency is just a repeating pattern._

_Like a heartbeat._

_I’m in a shadow realm, Harrington. I’m operating on the wrong frequency. It’s so cold here. My heartbeat is so slow. Deadly slow, but this is a shadow realm and it keeps me alive, keeps me like a shadow._

_I don’t belong here. I just need to reset my frequency and transmit it back to something in normal Hawkins, something that can receive it._

_Do you get me, Harrington?_

_Steve?_

Not even a little bit, but it doesn’t matter. He’ll do anything. Anything to fill the gaping hole where his heart is meant to be. Anything to bring Billy home, to fight for him, to make sure he isn’t alone.

And maybe Robin’s talk got to him. Maybe he hasn’t been able to get it off his mind, how if someone as cool and amazing as Robin could be into girls, then maybe… maybe he could be…

...and maybe it would be…

It doesn’t matter yet. He’ll deal with it when he gets there.

The wind picks up near the top of the hill, sending his hair into his eyes, into his mouth. He spits it out and runs to the radio, flicking the switches and turning the dials like Billy told him to, made him repeat over and over until there was no doubt he knew what he was doing.

And he waits.

And he waits.

And he… something crackles into life. Billy’s voice stutters and wavers into the night, and Steve can feel the tears on his cheeks again, and fuck he hopes he isn’t going insane because nothing has ever felt as right and as good as this moment right now, and if it isn’t real he doesn’t know what he’ll do.

“I need to raise my heartbeat, Steve.” 

Billy’s voice fades in and out. They’re worlds apart, but it’s just a shadow.

“Can you get warm somehow?”

Billy laughs, the sound low and soft. “I’ve been cold for months, Steve. I can’t get warm anymore.”

“Then what?”

“I need you to talk to me.”

“What do I say?”

“Anything. Tell me a scary story. Make me jump, Harrington. Just keep talking until something happens.” There’s desperation in his voice, but it’s distant and mute, like he doesn’t know how to have hope anymore.

Steve can’t imagine anything scarier than what is happening right now, so he tries something else.

“Max still cries for you.”

Billy doesn’t respond, the silence awfully loud, and Steve keeps talking.

“She misses you so fucking much. For a while there, the kids were on rotation, you know? Looking after her. Making sure she was never alone. She wears your old t-shirts.” He laughs. “They look good on her. I think she’s even started listening to Metallica. It’s so noisy, man, I don’t know how you like that shit.”

He pauses, and Billy’s voice crackles into life. “Keep going.”

Does that mean it’s working? Jesus, what the hell are they doing? They need someone smarter. They need El.

“You’re pretty smart, you know.” Christ, he’s just saying all this random shit. What the hell is he doing? “I mean, I don’t know anyone who could think up something like this. Except the kids of course.”

“You saying I’m as smart as a fourteen year old? I’m flattered, Steve.” 

Billy’s tone is dry, but there’s something in it, something wet and despairing in a different way to before. It’s the knife edge of hope, like maybe he had it again for a second but it’s already fading.

This could be the last time Steve ever talks to Billy. The last chance he ever has to say the things that drown him. They might not win this; fuck knows they’re due for a loss. They’ve been clinging to a win with everything they have, but there’s nothing left. Steve has nothing left.

“I miss you, Billy.” Steve closes his eyes. “I know that’s crazy because we hardly knew each other, but I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop imagining you fighting that thing for days, all alone, and thinking how we should have helped you. And it’s not just guilt, Billy. I just… I fucking miss _you_ . I miss your dumbass posturing and the way you were always in my face. I miss seeing you strut around the pool like you fucking owned it. I miss your stupid hair, and your stupid eyes, and the way you used to always seem like you knew more than what you said. Like you deliberately chose to say the things you _didn’t_ mean just so you could hide what you did. And I miss what I didn’t know about you, and whatever I never got to know, and never will get to know.” 

Steve’s voice finally breaks, and everything he’s been holding back surges forward to fill the empty space inside him. It’s too much. There’s not enough room; it’s too much for so little a space and he can’t hold it all. His chest _hurts_ and he can’t hold all of this alone.

Strong arms wrap around his shoulders, and he leans into it without questioning whether he’s finally lost it completely or whether, against all odds, they actually did it. He sobs into Billy’s neck and pulls him close and tries not to lose it more at the way Billy buries his face into Steve’s shoulder and fucking cries, huge, wracking sobs that don’t fit what he knew of Billy at all but completely fit what he’s starting to know.

“I’m sorry,” Billy says, over and over. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Steve clutches him tighter.

Steve can count the ribs beneath Billy’s skin, but he’s warm and he’s close and he’s real. He finally opens his eyes, but his tears are blurring everything too much for him to see clearly, and in the sheen of water and moonlight, it looks like there’s two of Billy: one real and one shadow. Then he blinks and the shadow disappears.

“Steve,” Billy whispers.

Steve has never seen his face so open, so vulnerable. It breaks over and over again, and he thinks now that Billy’s face is never going to return to the mask he used to wear. And maybe that hurts, but it’s a good thing. It’s good because things need to change sometimes, and this change means something good. Steve can get to know this Billy. Steve _will_ get to know him.

He leans forward into the night and kisses him, their lips soft with warmth and the salty aftertaste of tears. Maybe if Robin can like girls, Steve doesn’t have to pretend anymore, and Christ he’s been through enough to know now that the things people believe are important, that matter, don’t mean shit at all.

This, this means something, and he pulls Billy close and kisses him and feels his warmth and knows that he’s never going to let him face any monster alone again.

*

The Harringtons got a new couch for winter, which means Steve gets the leftovers for his apartment. The apartment he shares with Billy.

Billy has never felt anything as comfortable as these cushions. The heater blows soft air into the room, warming his skin and the blanket that covers him and Steve as they doze in the late afternoon sun. It will be dark soon, but even the dark feels light now that Billy knows he can face the shadows and live.

Steve turns sideways, settling further between Billy’s legs, and burrows his face into Billy’s neck.

“We should get up,” he murmurs, breath warm against Billy’s skin.

“Why?”

“Dunno. Feels lazy.”

Billy tightens his grip, pulling Steve in closer. “Lazy is good.”

The smell of roast beef still lingers in their tiny apartment, and the sink is stacked with dishes. The kids left only an hour ago, stuffed so full of good food they complained the whole way down the stairs.

Max had lingered at the bottom, like she always does, and drawn Billy into the tightest hug he’d ever felt. Tighter even than the ones Steve gives him every morning before they leave for work.

“Miss you,” she said, like always, just so he knows. Just so he knows someone is thinking of him in the time they’re apart. That he isn’t alone.

“Miss you too, shitbird.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek, like always, and let her go while Steve stepped in to take her place, one hand slipped into the back pocket of Billy’s jeans.

“Don’t know how you even fit in those, after that,” Steve murmured, squeezing Billy’s ass through the fabric. “You’re going to have to roll me back up the stairs.” 

“So dramatic, Harrington. I didn’t stop you going back for thirds.”

“There was so much left. It was only polite.”

Billy drifts away from the memory and returns to the present. The heater hums. Steve shifts against him, slowly falling asleep.

“You know what they say?” Billy murmurs quietly. “About love making you crazy?”

The corners of Steve’s mouth lift a little at the edges at the word love. They’ve said it many times before. They’ll say it many more again. “Mmm?”

“I’m glad you went a little crazy.”

“Only for you.”

Billy smiles and lets his head rest back against the cushions. They have nowhere to be. Lazy is good.

As the sun dips below the horizon and Steve’s back presses hard against Billy’s chest, Billy can feel the beat of Steve’s heart thudding against his skin. 

As he drifts off to sleep, he can feel his own heart beating too. The quiet rhythm fills body as their hearts beat together, on the same frequency once more.

**Author's Note:**

> The science in this is the most basic, amateur and probably wrong application... but work with me here. I just want him back.
> 
> I think I used one of Ihni's theories as the basis of Billy still being in the Upside Down? I think? Last night is a bit of a blur tbh but if that's right thank you for the hope and inspiration it gave me <3


End file.
